The Documents That Started It All -- New York Magazine

Where's the letter requesting George W. Bush be let out of the National Guard 6 months early to attend Harvard Business School? I recall that one, also because someone at the Washington Post wrote a book including his buddy at Harvard, a large Republican Party donor, who is currently in charge of privatizing the former nationalized businesses in Iraq? The part I recall was the person who knows nothing about stock markets being asked to re-start the Iraq stock market it's quoted and discussed. This is the first I've seen of these I thought it was at least in part about the Harvard Business School MBA for the future President of the United States. What about the (strategic metals shutdown aside in WWII) stated allegation (WNYC radio) that the brother of the owner CBS, wanted to purchase the Texas Rangers baseball team, whose state invested stadium was built while President Bush was governor, the sale of which paid him enough to buy the former German's turkey ranch in Crawford, Texas and left CBS's brother out of it. Is there a baseball feud going on? Why has such an issue been made? OK, President's son goes to Harvard, leaves detestable F-102 (non-supersonic) on the runway to save us from the future "weapons of mass destruction"? Which document is the forgery, these or the other "signed" by the former CIA director, Vice President then President George H.W. Bush. Maybe when he stopped aboard the Mount Washington in Wolfeboro, NH to say a prayer before taking the "reins" while President Reagan went under anesthesia for his colon, maybe he wasn't kidding...here comes my son. ReportBy georgejmyersjr on 11/26/2007 at 3:08pm Ed. - The IBM Selectric "ball" typewriter was shown at the 1964 World's Fair in 1963-1964. I recall it quite vividly, it would type in Russian (Cyrillic script) for every English character typed, though I think a direct connection without translation, though it made one think. 12/07/2007 at 10:21pm

Tom Brokaw Discusses Iraq, Network News, and the Upcoming Election During Romantic, Candlelit Interview With Howard Kurtz - Media on The Huffington Post

Yesterday a knock came to my friends door in the Bronx, NY. It was a gentleman with two petitions to put Hillary Clinton on the ballot. I thought it was the furnace repairman returning at first, the thing went out after Thanksgiving. It sort of made sense, in Representative Crowley's district (redistricting stretches from the Bronx into Queens) Senator Clinton, after the first "pile-on" debate, only actually officially requested to run in New Hampshire. I still recall that 3 or 4 am call by Mr. Brokaw that George W. Bush had won in the first election, the impropriety of which, presented to the President of the Senate, then Vice President Albert Gore and the candidate and alleged victim in the said election in Florida, the motion presented by an African-American woman Senator would not be heard by them and the rest of it went to the Supreme Court instead of a Senate committee, an image still stuck in my brain. I enjoyed Mr. Brokaw's autobiography, a cousin, George Murray, an award-winning news producer, who started out in the film editing room (infantry Captain in the Korean War and then Army Signal Corps, as was actors Martin Landau and Michael Richards) at NBC news, directing "Huntley and Brinkley" (started as a substitute for a sick one) and lastly producing CBS' coverage of both Democratic and Republican conventions in 1976, as far as I know never wrote one. I would have liked to have read about the stories of Saigon and Houston, the war and the Gemini project, which ruined his first marriage, washing his shirts out in hotel rooms. Edwin Newman read his letter of a cancellation by "higher-ups" of his investigative journalism team in South Vietnam trying to get the "common soldiers view" of the conflict for a number of months, at a eulogy in the UN Chapel. He had died in Mexico City, where his wife, an Avon executive from Pennsylvania, was introducing that product there. Well, I can look forward to Brokaw's new book.

The Song of the Hunted Humpback Whale - Dot Earth - Climate Change and Sustainability - New York Times Blog

In America/Canada we have a whale problem over “the war on terror”. In the Bay of Fundy there is a right whale nursery, nearby FDR’s beloved Campobello Island, (see the “Red Lobster” wallpaper in their bathroom for the Grand Manan Channel) where Guelph University has studied the DNA and remaining pod of the “right” because harpooned they float instead of sink whales that swim along the US coast from Florida to Canada. Since “war” was declared ships cannot be ordered to slow down by the US Coast Guard, though most of the deaths of the right whales result from collisions these days with ships I read. Irony is they may be driven to extinction by the “war on terror”. Once whales were towed up the Hudson River to Hudson, NY rendered into oil and lit up the northern tier of cities, i.e., Albany, Syracuse, Rochester, and Buffalo, New York. We should show some gratefulness. Many a place on the East Coast has had whaling in its business sphere and the “Nantucket sleigh ride” was known for being towed by a whale from the whaleboat, until it tired. Perhaps Herman Melville lamented that “Moby-Dick” was not placed on every Congressman’s desk instead of “Whitejacket” which, called for the end of cruelty shown to sailors on US ships, another cruelty well described. Slow down!

Dada in Iowa

The International Dada Archive

An interesting collection of Dada, a somewhat overlooked yet often mentioned art movement. I have started reading Marsden Hartley's  Adventures in the arts: informal chapters on painters, vaudeville and poets. New York: Boni and Liveright, 1921, mostly because it is one of the few dada writings in English.

I got here by looking at woodblock works by Arthur Segal mentioned in today's new Wikipedia entry "Did you know that: Arthur Segal was prevented from exhibiting his art in Germany because of his Jewish background?" after brushing up on the history of the radical "Weathermen": "U.S. activist Kit Bakke went on from being considered a terrorist with a 400-page FBI file to become a nurse for children with cancer?"

Did you know that Dada means "hobbyhorse"? I didn't.

Pandagon :: Army desertion rate highest since 1980 :: November :: 2007

I once researched the National Guard based in the Bowery in NYC as part of a multiple cemetery investigation for archaeological significance. When the US government first convened it met in NYC and had a National Guard (the Second Amendment ensured it wasn’t the only “state” militia) and after 9/11/01 the Congress met again in NYC. This particular unit's officer would later be tried in courts martial after the “Draft Riots” during the American Civil War and was called out in march to protect Washington, DC later disbanded perhaps far from the riots, on Brother Island in the Bronx. They perhaps were an original regiment under General Von Steuben, called the “Steuben Rifles” in the civil war. Kate Millet lived in the place next to Germania Hall. Another Guard unit was just aways up the street and it became part of the only privately funded Guard armory moved to the 7th Regimental Armory uptown. What I can’t understand is that in the millions who served in the 10 year Vietnam War era I read maybe a couple of thousand National Guard soldiers actually even saw Vietnam, and as we know many escaped the Selective Service by joining it. I really feel that some of the best and brightest of our citizenry, they and enlistees, have been put at a severe disadvantage, serving next to so-called “contractors” making x times as much as they do. I wonder, as was shown to be the case in Vietnam to harm Mexican-Americans (first issue of “Lowrider”) if someone else may be getting the short end of the stick and may be reflected in the blanket statistics hidden perhaps by the arguably failed policy of “don’t ask don’t tell”.

Jamie Lee Curtis: Thanksgiving '07: Happy Birthday to Me - Entertainment on The Huffington Post

I am not so thankful for John Steinbeck's legacy almost stolen from his son and family by legal "strategery" like a "black pearl". He lived out near Mattituck on Long Island, NY (Jamie's dad, Tony Curtis, is from where I type, in the Bronx, named for Swedish settlers with a library, which like many English words, once ending in -cks have become -x) with his wife and had a nice little sunroom to sit in. His son I recall was a reporter in Vietnam during the undeclared "war" there. Being George Myers, I'm kinda of thankful for the "Halloween" series and how it might have inspired Mike Myers. Thanks for being all those interesting characters, Jamie Lee, and those you starred next to should be thankful too. You know who they are, Governor A.S., Elwood Delaney, Eddie Murphy, Ron Silver, the fish named Wanda...

Concern over firefighters' anti-terror role - Topix

Who appointed the current elected officials "loco parentis"? Wikipedia: "Originally derived from British common law, it is applied as a broad provision allowing such institutions to act in the best interests of the students as they see fit, allowing what would otherwise be considered violations of the students' civil liberties" and because of one anonymous phone call ("bomb scare" as it happened in one of the first JROTC Marine Corps in the country, in Susan B. Anthony's character witness named town, after judge, Henry R. Selden, NY at Newfield HS) every locker in the school would be searched. So a type of "Her Majesty's Search Warrant" used in suspicion, would be granted to volunteer firemen?

McClatchy Washington Bureau | 11/04/2007 | Experts: No firm evidence of Iranian nuclear weapons

Hostage Crisis: MSM "We interrupt your program to state that if the USSR makes a move for the Iran border we will blow up all the F-14 Tomcats we sold to Iran (80 of them and a compound of 4000 Grumman employees training them, sold nowhere else) because of the air-to-air missiles on them would upset the balance of power." - ca. 1979 I was sitting with the test-pilot of the F-14 when this came over the television invited to watch on his belated birthday a show about "Ishi" with his wife an anthropologist who had been over in "Teheran" and gave a talk on what she had seen there in the Anthropology Club at Stony Brook University. I think there was once an order for 100, reportedly 77 are still there. When an Iranian student asked former Secretary of State Henry Kissenger back then what he could do about Savak ("the Shah's secret police") spying on Iranian students here in the US, he said he could do nothing. We seem to forget the "crisis" was over them, perhaps an excuse for a new global post-Teheran Conference (WWII), which some believe set the stage for the next world war.

Woops...

I was just in the wild a bit myself where the White House Tree (non-Festivus) is come from this year, decorated by the residents of Bennington, Vermont from the ho, ho, ho, Green Mountain National Forest, also celebrating it's 75th anniversary, a tradition it's said started in the 1840s by German immigrants in Brooklyn, NY. I recall last years arguments over the "tree" and wish President Bush had not cut down the last original tree on the White House grounds, because a squirrel was bothering him in the Oval Office, probably got fixated on it and VP would-be "Lon" Cheney had it removed. Paramount's "Miracle Man" (Lon Chaney) comes to mind, at the tomb of the Unknown Soldier recently re-interred with another as DNA showed who the former unknown was, this year attended by the just recently called for impeachment VP, on Veterans Day, while POTUS GWB was in Waco, Texas. There's a Cheney Island in the archipelago of Grand Manan Island in the Bay of Fundy in Canada and some of the residents trace their family to the current VP (Ed. - originally settled by no longer there). The legislation to impeach VP Cheney, I watched dramatically unfold in the US Congress on C-Span before Veterans Day. Wish we could see the voting "board" there also we could see who changed all their votes to make it happen. Mr. Lamb has lamented on C-Span it's not up to them Congress has it's own TV directors. Anyway, one thing I heard up in the only wind-farm on Federal forest land, was that the statistical "witches" have it Giuliani/Huckabee vs. Clinton/Clark (first in his class at West Point Academy, General Wesley Clark) and thought I'd share what I heard in Bennington, Vermont, with the "Baby Boom".

Which way did they go George?

The writer is currently enjoying employment in Vermont, where the White House Christmas Tree is come from this year, decorated by the residents of Bennington. It's come from the ho, ho, ho, Green Mountain National Forest also celebrating it's 75th anniversary.

Kaj Larsen: A Lesson For Mukasey: Why I Had Myself Water-Boarded - Politics on The Huffington Post

In the Ossining, New York State Urban Cultural Park (there's 14 in New York state, i.e., Buffalo Theater District, Sackett's Harbor, Erie Canal Lock in Syracuse, NY, etc.) next to the Sing Sing prison, there's a small museum of the prisoner treatment in the past. One artifact is a stone basin that fit around a prisoner's neck and then was filled with water until the prisoner could drown in a "puddle". This might be the original water torture technique. A small former cell is shown and other artifacts, including a current bag of "shanks" tagged with evidence tags in current cases apparently. On some days one can visit the inside of the original Croton Aqueduct, running nearby, which with the Bronx Historical Society we hiked many sections of on Saturdays. It was what made NYC thrive and erroneously attributed to the cause of the presence of the cockroach or "water bug". I would have thought this form of water torture, i.e., simulated drowning, had been left in the museums of the world. Blogged with Flock

Giuliani Poised to Launch His Own Version Of The "Southern Strategy" - Politics on The Huffington Post

His re-election and second term was against the former Manhattan Borough President Ruth Messenger, an elderly woman politician, who did remarkably well against him. I think many had become upset with some of the things going on that became troubling issues, i.e., Yankel Rosenbaum, who bled to death on a gurney in the hospital with an unseen and untreated wound after what 50 minutes, became a call to divisive politics. There was secret taping of police in buy and bust operations that risked many officers lives for $5 and $10 in my borough the Bronx, where over one 4 week grand jury session I was presented as the foreperson with over 240 cases to swear and consider and sign as the non-anonymous citizen of record. Ballot issues were suddenly removed (medical marijuana) though described in the public voting guide. Great issue, perhaps, was made of the destruction of the so-called "Liberal Party" which failed to garner 50,000 votes yet the machines themselves have been ordered perhaps destroyed as a secret switch, though it affected no outcome per se according to the NY Post, was set and forgotten in some former "re-balancing" in voting agreed to by both major parties. And, oh yeah, the firemen are mad that he was more concerned with the gold in the bottom of the WTC in the Bank of Nova Scotia than the victims and remains above. Some like I in my opinion have somewhat different memories of the man put in charge of the cleanup of the anthrax letters contamination sent through the US Post Office.

Alec Baldwin: Let's Hope the Writers Get a Good Contract - Entertainment on The Huffington Post

Maybe we should see this as a sign of other effects on the film industry too i.e., actor/singer Danny Aiello is called before NYC and denied a legitimate business proposal for the use of the former once proposed US Navy "Homeport" on Staten Island for reuse for film post-production (which doesn't happen in NYC very often, though films are "shot" there); Robert DeNiro, with a similar proposal in or near the world-history significant Brooklyn Navy Yard, was chastised by the then Mayor Giuliani (who flew the state flag of Arkansas over City Hall visiting there contemplating a run for Senator against the then former First Lady, now Senator Hillary Clinton, a now illegal request); the tallest sound stage in New York state opened "out east" in the Hamptons, (blessed by Princess Thunderbird of the Shinnecock I think) has as far as I know, not attracted any major productions at "Pinewood West" (Pinewood "East" presumably in England, the cycle runs summer Hamptons, winter Hollywood); many film festivals have started locally, i.e., Stony Brook University, combined Long Island wine tasting and "Rocket Man", and the Hamptons film festival, all these factors point to perhaps something more than problems with "Hollywood" writers in the WGA. Once I asked for Iron Eyes Cody's autograph at the Choctaw pow-wow in Mississippi, who had recently lost his wife, (he played "Sitting Bull" and perhaps more remembered recently for the "crying Indian" seen watching the trash thrown onto highways in America) maybe it's again more over the politics of American history and its leadership. It seems the opportunity for writers in America, not just in the film industry, it's commentators and critics, might be the intended target.

Holly Goldberg Sloan: My thoughts on the Writers Guild and the AMPTP - Entertainment on The Huffington Post

I recall being in the New York Public Library just before it was to close for remodeling the Main Reading Room, perhaps one of the more cerebral places in New York City, redone by the Rose family donors. I read the then recent statement of someone writing for the WGA, as I was researching the written histories of a whole block in the South Street Seaport Historic District, still a parking lot, though once to be "condemned" by the then Mayor Dinkins administration to bring much needed water from the new tunnel being dug underground up to the surface (there or One Police Plaza). I was surprised by the article, which stated how copy machines are regulated in other countries to protect authors and how the sport of baseball was determined by the Supreme Court to be a "national past-time" and therefore not subject to the US laws of monopoly when it came to authors. The first point was easy to understand the second, harder. I've watched a sports-bar named the "Brooklyn Dodgers" sued by the Los Angeles "Dodgers" franchise, however, over the name. Brooklyn, NY is where the "Dodgers" first played at Ebbets Field. I understand the second point now. I also understand how hard it is to be a member of the WGA and some of the problems it faces and hope the management comes to a quick settlement with its "players" and late-night television doesn't turn into an insomniac's "terrorist hide-out" where I'm sure the newsies will have to entertain us with what's on "the wires".

Dutch Deed Fetches More Than a Handful of Beads - City Room - Metro - New York Times Blog

I wonder if it was surveyed by Jacques Cortelyou, a French surveyor hired by the Dutch in the cited first survey of Brooklyn, a street in downtown Brooklyn (narrowly voted to join the rest of the city in consolidation with the “boroughs”) named after them. A more recent descendant George B. Cortelyou held Cabinet posts under President’s William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt, the last position Postmaster General, and became one of the famous (along with singer/writer Harry Chapin) residents of Huntington, NY on Long Island, once also a very old, but English settlement (Ashford in the time of Cromwell). To think that the once Chairman of the Republican Party started out teaching shorthand in New York City! The National Archives says he was also the first White House Press Secretary inviting the press into the White House and historians feel his influence has been overlooked.